This should really be an *off topic* question, but it is directly related to CFB.

Why does a premium channel like ESPN have 90% of all the bowl games now??? Have the OTA networks lost interest in bidding them? Has college football lost interest with the masses? I'm not complaining about this - just making an observation. I noticed this last year and realized this is the future of college football. I lost interest in paying the high price of cable/satellite TV, but I didn't lose interest in college football. I know there are a lot of cord cutters out there and a lot of homes that have 2nd/3rd TVs that are NOT hooked up to a pay service.

If someone wanted to complain to the FBS committee about having to have PAY TV to be able to see all of the big FBS games, who would you call or send an email to? And my guess is, they don't care anyway.

I suspect just the opposite. The appeal of pro and college football has been on the rise for years. This year ratings are down a little. ESPN has been showing the bulk of these weekday and weeknight bowl games leading up to the new year for quite a while, and the sheer number of bowl games has gone from 15 in 1980 to 41 today, again because of the popularity of football.

But not surprisingly, one just needs to follow the money to explain why things are the way they are. The richest networks, whether they be over the air or cable, bid whatever they need to get rights to the games to broadcast over their networks. Keep in mind that all the OTA networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox) all have their own cable sports networks now. ESPN (a cable network) is ABC's version of this. So it is the network's call as to where they put the games; on cable or on the OTA network. If the networks don't want to disrupt their normal OTA programming schedule, they will put the game on the cable network, knowing the best way to generate the most revenue.

ESPN has helped drive the high penetration of cable (and pizza dish) to the consumer. Consumers are ultimately the ones to blame for why more games are on pay cable/satellite.

The audience here on this website does not identify as much with the mainstream consumer, so many of us don't like the cable games, right? We want to be able to get them free over the air locally or via satellite.__________________"My neighbors cut down their weeping willow and GO CUBS! "

American Sports Network also had one game (the Arizona Bowl) which was OTA here as well as on c-band.

Actually, I watched almost all of the bowl games on my firestick with the ESPN App (ESPN3) which only requires a cable internet connection (the games are free and legal). I think DSL also qualifies. I don't have any version of cable TV.

Some of the ESPN3 broadcasts were in Spanish and some like today's ESPN semi-final bowl games were the sky-cam version. Some were regular ESPN bowl games also broadcast on ESPN3. But all were free, except for needing an internet connection.

It seems to me that ESPN is freeing up more of its bowl broadcasts to more non-cable TV customers than ever before. Check your internet provider to see if ESPN3 is available.__________________Dan

... snip ...I watched almost all of the bowl games on my firestick with the ESPN App (ESPN3) which only requires a cable internet connection (the games are free and legal). I think DSL also qualifies. I don't have any version of cable TV....snip...

Actually, ESPN3 is only viewable if your internet service provider pays for access. Windstream, that I have, stopped paying ESPN several years ago and I lost access to ESPN3.

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